href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@38903@[email protected]#chap23" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Miscellaneous Considerations

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE BUSINESS OF MINING

INTRODUCTION

There is probably no line of human activity that is not beset with malicious and ignorant intruders. The fact that any occupation or business is really legitimate seems often to stimulate the operations of these disreputable persons.

Mining does not escape the application of this postulate. For ages, the industry has afforded most fertile opportunities for the machinations of the unscrupulous and the erring. Somehow, there weaves throughout the history of mining a sort of magnetism rendering us unduly susceptible to the allurements which are presented with every mining proposition.

It is not, however, always intentional deceit that is perpetrated upon the unwary. Often, mining failures result from actual ignorance of the business upon the part of those entrusted with its conduct, or if not from actual lack of knowledge, then from erroneous conceptions with the consequent misapplication of honest endeavor. A victim of such misplaced faith is perhaps more leniently inclined than is the person who has been duped by a "shark," but the effect upon the great industry is hurtful in either case.

The purpose of this short monograph will be served if the author can feel assured that his readers will finish its perusal with the belief that mining may be followed as a business with just as much assurance of success as attaches to any one of the many lines of industrial activity. Many persons who have sustained losses in mining ventures deserve no sympathy whatever, since they have not exercised even the simplest precautions. So long as men—or women—will take as fact the word of any untrained or